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How Things Will Change Under IPv6
Da Massive writes "IPv6 Forum leader Latif Ladid provides an insight into the workings of IPv6. He also talks about how peer-to-peer file serving as we know it today will be redundant with the newer protocol." From the article: "Q: What is the most significant benefit that IPv6 offers the world? A: Global connectivity. Currently we have less than 50 percent world-wide Internet penetration, and we have used most of the address space. If you look at the Western world, we have more than 50 percent penetration. In total we have close to a billion people connected to the Internet. So it is a false perception that we have full Internet penetration. We have six billion people on the planet. When the Internet protocol was designed back in 1980 there were 4.3 billion address spaces; it was already insufficient for the population. By 2050 we will be nearly 10 billion people. But there are not only people. There are things. Billions and billions of devices that will service these people."
What people dont seem to realize is that IPv6 is not only about adding more addresses.
They also improve the packet structure (by doing things like removing the fragmentation flag)
And we should be looking at making wireless roaming easier (consider forwarding mechanisms when changing WAP's)
But more addresses is a key benefit. And there is no real harm, just the cost of transition which can be minimized due to the backwards compatibility provided through tunneling, etc. So if everyone just starts installing IPv6 hardware, everything is happy. Why is this issue being rehashed?
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
How about if your domain name is blahblah.com, then your web server could be www.blahblah.com? It gets better: Your mail server could be mail.blahblah.com. And yes, your coffe pot could be coffeepot1.blahblah.com.
I understand that NAT is considered a hack, but isn't the fact that a device's real address is hidden a security feature for the user? Wouldn't it be that much harder for malicious users to track my internet usage? This would be especially true if I had a mobile device, since moving from one NAT system to another would make following my movements remotely more difficult. So I'd think NAT would be considered a privacy boon. The article doesn't really address this effectively. Also, since most mobile devices have limited bandwidth, I'd think that having a constantly changing IP address, or hiding behind a NAT would mean that DOS attacks against them would be more difficult. If most big mobile device ISPs like the blackberry and sidekick folks offered NAT based access in the future, I'd think that we'd be relatively safe from IPv4 address exhaustion. So stating the main reason for IPv6 being address exhaustion I think is crap. It IS very useful for other reasons though, and I think those reasons warrant it being switched to.
Not a terrible idea, but it assumes that end users are going to be able to figure out how to configure static IP addresses for all their devices, which is a pretty big assumption.
Plus, who would be in charge of assigning them? Would that mean that I have to register for an IP like I do for a domain name? Who's handing them out, the DMV? The Social Security office? The UN?
Also, it seems like it would be easy for hackers to mimic other people's IP address. Seems like maintenence nightmare.
I always understood that ipv6 has the ability to send 1 packet to mupltiple persons at once. So for example if you use bittorrent, and there are 7 people connected then you only have to send out 1 packet to reach to 6 people in stead of 6 packets with ipv4.
The rest I don't know
If you've ever tried to implement an IPSEC VPN with numerous endusers that have DSL/CableModem gateways that default to 192.168.1.x, you'll know why NAT is so bad, particularly if you're using that address space internally already. Granted, there are workarounds to this.
That's dicey, but what's even more dicey is trying to interconnect corporate networks that use the same private address space. Companies that run virtual trading floors, for example, offer private line connections. You end up with multiple IP subnet conflicts and it's an incredible headache. That having been said, there are workarounds to that, too.
When NAT became popular way back when, I was part of a few really painful reIPing projects. The reason we went to NAT was because there was no way to get portable IP space and our ISP was being a complete dick, jacking their prices and refusing to run BGP with us. Moving to NAT meant portability and portability meant our ISP couldn't dick us. If I was to move away from NAT and put v6 addresses in my corp network, that's what I'd worry about more than anything.
Back in the 70's, President Carter was going to move us to the Metric system. Road signs were being converted to mph/metric, goods were dual marked, etc. The idea was to make the conversion in 1981. Then reagan came in and stopped it. America was nearly ready, but it was stopped. Now, we are just about the only nation that does not do metric. That means that special labeling is done just for us. That also means, our goods are more expensive. Sadly, at this point, we have raised several whole generations without as much metric as we had in the 60's, and 70's. When we decide to finally change, it will be expensive and hard. reagan's choice was very short-sighted.
Right now, is the time to switch. In the future, it will only be more expensive esp. as small devices get IPs. They will also have to be switched. Finally, a new wave of software development could take place with IPv6, that is more difficult to do with IPv4. Not siwtching is very short-sighted.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Doesn't qmail need a non-DJB patch to use IPv6? I enjoy Bernstein's writing, but in this case, he is doing a whole lot of talking and not a whole lot of acting.
Personally, my entire home network is IPv6. If people don't want to use IPv6, that's fine with me. My ISP charges me $10/month for static IPs, but with IPv6, I got 2^64 of them for free. 2^64!!! That's 2^32 more than all the IPv4 addresses in existence.
I think it's easy to see why people don't want IPv6. Without artificial scarcity, they can't gouge you for IP addresses.
My other car is first.
"Tell me, Grandpa, what was it like in the days of IPv4?" young Suzy asked as she played with the IP wireless transmitters in her golden locks of hair.
"Well Suzy," Grandpa said, his mind on the distant past, "back then we only had 32 bit addressing, and much of it was provisioned out to various regional entities, with large corporate interests sitting on whole chunks of the space. We had these things called NAT routers."
"Sounds scary, Grandpa." Suzy shivered.
"It was." Grandpa replied. "The first NAT routers could only support FTP and IRC, and folks using some chat programs could barely get their software to work at all. Still NAT did okay, for a while."
"Then what happened Grandpa?" Suzy asked, enthralled.
"Well, as I recall, the first problems came when handheld wireless devices became more common. They had to sit behind various other networks, without direct connectivity. Proprietary solutions abounded, and connectivity was in the hands of large corporate communications giants. Everyone knew that IPv4 had been in trouble for many years, but some folks said 'NAT's all we need' while others didn't think there was a crisis at all, and even if there was one coming, it was nothing to worry about."
"But there was, wasn't there Grandpa?" Suzy knew the best part of the story was coming.
"Very much so." Grandpa said after a moment. "You see, even with NAT and various other networks between the IPv4 network and the average person's devices, the Internet was growing too fast. The limited supply of IP addresses as beginning to slow the expansion of the Internet. Finally, with the great IP Famine of '18, we had no choice. IPv6 was rolled out. Some folks were mad, because they had put their heads in the sand and refused to recognize the problem had been coming for a while. It costs those people lots of money, and some either had to put up with being stuck behind NAT routers and losing out on new functionality or simply going out of business."
Suzy laughed. "They were very silly people, Grandpa!"
Grandpa nodded. "Yes, they were, but most of us survived. Now it's time to go. Don't forget your data glasses and your book tablet. The last flight to Tokyo leaves in an hour, and I promised I'd get you home before dinner."
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.